2 hours ago, alwaysAMC said:

LOL - well Jim is just a dopey golden. Super harmless.

That reminds me that Vanessa and Bill never even had a scene together/acknowledged that he almost got shot up and died at the Santos mansion - boo!

But Beth knew **** wasn't going to screw her. At least that's what he kept saying.

It's always a bad sign when writing teams are bad at family interactions.

47 minutes ago, P.J. said:

But Beth knew **** wasn't going to screw her. At least that's what he kept saying.

It's always a bad sign when writing teams are bad at family interactions.

But that's what was weird to me - she was the aggressor, so to have sex with him didn't seem like it would make her recoil in fear with visions of Carl. But honestly, Beth has been so confusing to me since her arrival (for me). She comes across very pushy and competitive with men, to the point she's very catty with all the women (who all hate her), but then she's also deeply insecure at times. It doesn't come across to me as someone that I can root for... and I want to, given her history with the show, that I've read about... but I can't. I also don't love bratty Susan who hates her right now, so I don't really feel for either of them.

Thanks for your latest recap @alwaysAMC

Sad to say the very silly material with Abby's super-hearing is what her implant story is likely most remembered for (and got some tsk-tsks in the soap press at the time). At least Amy got something to do, I guess.

I find Susan irritating even in your synopses. Her behavior is natural, I suppose, but that doesn't make it worth watching. And it's difficult to care about Beth given her antics.

(was Beth a tennis ace in high school?)

If I had written this story, if it was a mandate to write this story with these three characters, I would have had Beth, going through an extensive mental breakdown which she increasingly struggles to hide, befriend Susan. I would have her, due to what happened with her stepfather abusing her, and how Carl abused both her and Lizzie, become paranoid that Jim had abused his wife (based on some comments she overhears Jim making about his late wife's "troubles") and was abusing Susan. Susan would initially not say much about this because Harley is busy with work and her pregnancy so she just appreciates having a maternal figure, but when she realizes that Beth is planning to kill Jim to protect her, she finally starts being honest with her. Beth is filled with shame and self-loathing, and shouts that she is becoming what she has always feared.

Beth then nearly commits suicide via pills before Jim and Susan find her and take her to the hospital. Beth then goes away for several months, with Jim visiting her regularly, drawn to her in spite of her problems (we could learn that his late wife also had serious mental problems). When Beth finally returns to Springfield, she tries to stay away from Jim, but with Susan's encouragement, they begin a relationship.

Edited 12 hours ago12 hr by DRW50

5 hours ago, DRW50 said:

(was Beth a tennis ace in high school?)

No. We met Beth right before graduation, but she was shy and introverted. She was artistic, not an athlete. Although it's also a little unrealistic she wouldn't have known the fundamentals of tennis. Phillip was more than once described as "near pro level" at tennis, and gave lessons at the club when he was a teen. I believe it's also mentioned that Alan and Phillip won father/son tournaments at the club when Phillip was young. You'd think he would've introduced Beth to the fundamentals at some point during their marriage.

7 hours ago, alwaysAMC said:

But that's what was weird to me - she was the aggressor, so to have sex with him didn't seem like it would make her recoil in fear with visions of Carl. But honestly, Beth has been so confusing to me since her arrival (for me). She comes across very pushy and competitive with men, to the point she's very catty with all the women (who all hate her), but then she's also deeply insecure at times. It doesn't come across to me as someone that I can root for... and I want to, given her history with the show, that I've read about... but I can't. I also don't love bratty Susan who hates her right now, so I don't really feel for either of them.

There's probably some psychology to a rape/abuse survivor being sexually aggressive, if she becomes attracted to a man and considers him being taken for granted in another relationship (which is the kindest way I can put her reaction to Vanessa.)

But mostly I think Brown and Esenstein (who I think are the ones who brought her back), simply plugged Beth into plots and reinvented her personality. Subsequent writers continued down this path, and Beth was usually 180 degrees from how she was introduced.

9 hours ago, DRW50 said:

Thanks for your latest recap @alwaysAMC

Sad to say the very silly material with Abby's super-hearing is what her implant story is likely most remembered for (and got some tsk-tsks in the soap press at the time). At least Amy got something to do, I guess.

I find Susan irritating even in your synopses. Her behavior is natural, I suppose, but that doesn't make it worth watching. And it's difficult to care about Beth given her antics.

(was Beth a tennis ace in high school?)

If I had written this story, if it was a mandate to write this story with these three characters, I would have had Beth, going through an extensive mental breakdown which she increasingly struggles to hide, befriend Susan. I would have her, due to what happened with her stepfather abusing her, and how Carl abused both her and Lizzie, become paranoid that Jim had abused his wife (based on some comments she overhears Jim making about his late wife's "troubles") and was abusing Susan. Susan would initially not say much about this because Harley is busy with work and her pregnancy so she just appreciates having a maternal figure, but when she realizes that Beth is planning to kill Jim to protect her, she finally starts being honest with her. Beth is filled with shame and self-loathing, and shouts that she is becoming what she has always feared.

Beth then nearly commits suicide via pills before Jim and Susan find her and take her to the hospital. Beth then goes away for several months, with Jim visiting her regularly, drawn to her in spite of her problems (we could learn that his late wife also had serious mental problems). When Beth finally returns to Springfield, she tries to stay away from Jim, but with Susan's encouragement, they begin a relationship.

You're welcome! I've love to have access to the soap mags throughout the 90s just to see what they would say about these GL storylines I'm watching (and my old AMC, etc). That's one thing I never had a chance to really read. I only got a glimpse of the covers at the grocery store, but never dared to open and read while standing there in public with my mom haha.

Wonderful idea and storyline! That would have been way more interesting to watch.

2 hours ago, P.J. said:

No. We met Beth right before graduation, but she was shy and introverted. She was artistic, not an athlete. Although it's also a little unrealistic she wouldn't have known the fundamentals of tennis. Phillip was more than once described as "near pro level" at tennis, and gave lessons at the club when he was a teen. I believe it's also mentioned that Alan and Phillip won father/son tournaments at the club when Phillip was young. You'd think he would've introduced Beth to the fundamentals at some point during their marriage.

There's probably some psychology to a rape/abuse survivor being sexually aggressive, if she becomes attracted to a man and considers him being taken for granted in another relationship (which is the kindest way I can put her reaction to Vanessa.)

But mostly I think Brown and Esenstein (who I think are the ones who brought her back), simply plugged Beth into plots and reinvented her personality. Subsequent writers continued down this path, and Beth was usually 180 degrees from how she was introduced.

So it sounds like they made up Beth's tennis history here. They had newspaper clippings of how great she was at tennis, winning awards in school. Oh well, the whole thing was rather ridiculous when Beth became so embarrassed and cried because she told a little white lie about her tennis abilities just to be flirty with Jim.

I think you're right about B&E here. Ugh, I wish I liked Beth more than I do.

1 hour ago, alwaysAMC said:

So it sounds like they made up Beth's tennis history here. They had newspaper clippings of how great she was at tennis, winning awards in school. Oh well, the whole thing was rather ridiculous when Beth became so embarrassed and cried because she told a little white lie about her tennis abilities just to be flirty with Jim.

I think you're right about B&E here. Ugh, I wish I liked Beth more than I do.

Yep. I don't recall how long they said Beth had been in town before we met her. (Later, there's also a confusing backstory of Ross and Beth's aunt Calla having run around Springfield while they dated in high school, which is complete BS, suggesting that both Calla and Lillian were native Springfielders.) It was long enough that she had a few prior hospital stays due to "clumsiness" (ie, Bradley's abuse).

It's writer laziness. Like when they act like Mindy graduated with Rick, Phillip and Beth from Springfield High. She didn't.

1 hour ago, alwaysAMC said:

So it sounds like they made up Beth's tennis history here. They had newspaper clippings of how great she was at tennis, winning awards in school. Oh well, the whole thing was rather ridiculous when Beth became so embarrassed and cried because she told a little white lie about her tennis abilities just to be flirty with Jim.

I think you're right about B&E here. Ugh, I wish I liked Beth more than I do.

Oh, they did a LOT to change Beth from here going forward.

As @P.J. mentioned, Beth was an shy teen who had been abused by her stepfather. She was never a schemer, not even in a mild way. She was THE heroine on GL during her first turn on the show. She was practically the Queen of Sincerity.

Judi Evans' Beth was SO different from Beth Chamberlain's, mostly because of the writing. Beth was practically like a goddess to Phillip. She was so friggin' perfect, it could be off-putting. Almost every man she knew fell in love with her. Alan hated her for no reason other than Phillip was so crazy for her it was a threat to him because that undermined his control of Phillip.

What's happening now during your GL watch is MILD compared to what's coming up for Beth. They always had the excuse of the trauma she went through when she was younger, even though she seemed to weather that fairly well at the time--of course, you never get over something like that, but she did seem to be able to cope. But there's also when she lost her memory (when she was supposed to be dead). She was so traumatized she couldn't talk, and she was with this creepy guy Neil, and who knows what their relationship was really like.

(They went back and forth so much with Neil's character that the actor complained about it in interviews).

Anyhoo, she and Phillip eventually got their happy ending, Grant and Beth left the show for a time. When they came back, even though it was still Beth Chamberlain, the character was different. She became SO neurotic. Would it be believable that she got involved with an abusive man? I mean, maybe, because a lot of abusive men hide that part of themselves at first.

But Beth was stronger in the past, and much smarter when it came to men. She didn't put up with being manipulated--she literally brought Jackson down when she realized he was trying to manipulate her. This version of Beth became a lot weaker and a lot more susceptible to manipulative men like Carl and Alan.

Don't get me wrong--I didn't love the original Beth, but I wish they had kept more of the strength and intelligence Beth had instead of making her this weak dishrag.

It's just one of the oddest character changes I can remember from a soap. She went from being the ideal heroine to almost a villain at times. Very bizarre.

8 minutes ago, DeeVee said:

Judi Evans' Beth was SO different from Beth Chamberlain's, mostly because of the writing. Beth was practically like a goddess to Phillip. She was so friggin' perfect, it could be off-putting. Almost every man she knew fell in love with her. Alan hated her for no reason other than Phillip was so crazy for her it was a threat to him because that undermined his control of Phillip.

Judi's Beth is like a saccharine version of ATWT's Lily Snyder or Y&R's Cricket. There's a moment I wound up running into over and over during my rewatch of Josh's accident, during Beth and Lujack's beach story, where Judi is literally running around like a hyperactive chipmunk....and I wonder what I ever saw in Beth.

Soap viewers understand that characters have to change, grow and evolve, but what they did to Beth was pretty much without foundation. Other than them blaming it on the loss of her marriage to Phillip---off screen.

Very interesting insights and thank you both, as always

Original Beth circa 1983 to 1986 was written as this shy and almost insipid character, but Judi Evans had such an intensity in how she delivered the lines that she gave Beth more of an edge then what was written in the script. The relationships she had with both Phillip and Lujack in her first stint were both very believable and very popular.

When Beth left in 1986, it was after the creator of the character Pam Long had left the show so when she 'died'.. there was a lot of loose ends over Alan and how he handled, Reva finding something on the boat that pointed to Beth possibly being alive.. but it seemed to have been dropped.

When Long came back and Blake/Phillip were established as a couple.. there was a huge red herring about whether Beth was dead or not and I think there was mention of some of the events from 1986 coming to light. There was a month or two arc where it seemed to point to Beth being alive due to paintings that looked as though they were painted by Beth. The cool thing was that it looked as though it was revealed to have been a hoax and a depressed Phillip having to grieve for Beth again.. and then at the episode, it's revealed Beth is actually alive.

The problem with Beth circa 1989 to 1991 was that she existed purely as an extension of Phillip without much agency or individual POV... which was the complete opposite of how Beth was written/presented in her first stint. I heard a rumor that had GA opted not to quit at the start of 1991 that the show was going to have killed off Beth again because the recast wasn't as accepted.

However, after Beth coming back in late 1997... it made her 1989 to 1991 seem like a masterclass of a consistent character vs what came after that.

I forget--did they actually have Alan in '86 plant that necklace (to confirm Beth had died) or was that rewritten?